


Ash

by orphan_account



Series: Fearful Symmetry [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Anger, Angry Sex, Episode: s03e03 His Last Vow, Estrangement, Lies, M/M, Names, Polyamory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-15
Updated: 2014-02-15
Packaged: 2018-01-12 13:23:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,663
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1186908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John married one liar, lives with another, and doesn't know either of their names.</p><p>Sherlock can work with that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ash

**Author's Note:**

> Waves of gratitude to shinysherlock and aderyn, without whom this work and this writer would be immeasurably poorer.

The memory stick catches the firelight, snags under John’s thumbnail. Sherlock lays his hands over his armrests, crosses his legs, and waits.

John frowns. “Are these all names, do you think? All four letters?”

“Why ask now?” Obvious—it’s November, Christmas is looming, and John, angry though he is, doesn’t want to spend it estranged from his pregnant wife—but it’s the answer John expects. “You haven’t so much as allowed me to mention Mary since you moved in.”

John crosses his legs (mirroring Sherlock: unconscious: interesting) and tugs at his purple cardigan. “Nope. Not Mary. ‘Mary’ is a name she stole. I don’t know her name, but her initials are A.G. or A.G.R.A. Jesus, Sherlock, I gave her my name, I _let her take my name,_ and I don’t even know her fucking initials.”

“Mmm, no.” Water squeals and thuds through the pipes: Mrs Hudson’s having a late night soak in the bath, probably with her herbal soothers. “Mary Elizabeth Watson, isn’t it? So M.E.W. Ridiculous, but hardly a secret. ”

“Shut up.” John’s left fist clenches around the stick. “Just—stop it.”

“Stop what?”

“Defending her!” The fire crackles; John lays the stick on his armrest and lowers his voice. “She lied to us both, she—Christ, Sherlock, she _shot_ you. You nearly died.”

It’s balm for Sherlock’s wounds, John’s wrath, but the fact remains: “You don’t know my initials, either.”

Creases form between John’s eyebrows. “Of course I do.”

 _You trust me. Even when I tell you that I’ve lied to you, you trust me._ The thought leaves an ache in Sherlock’s chest. “You don’t. Sherlock is one of my middle names.”

“One of your—Jesus. Of course it is. Everyone, _everyone_ I have ever loved has lied to me.”

John loves him.

Still.

Will there come a time, Sherlock wonders, when it does not surprise him to hear it said.

“You’ve lied, too.” The pipes rattle, probably loud enough to startle Mrs Hudson, as the water shuts off.

John’s chair creaks as he sets both feet on the floor and leans forward, his stare hard. “I’ve lied? _I’ve_ lied? When have I ever lied?”

“Mary believes that you have nightmares because you have PTSD. You told her that, didn’t you? Because it was easier than telling her that you miss the war.”

“Ella says I have PTSD.”

Sherlock leans forward, his elbows digging into his thighs. “You shot an unarmed man, a father, to death. I kept the Met from finding out. We had a laugh about it over dinner. Mary knows, I take it? Knows that you loved every minute of it?”

“Of course not.” John’s bare foot rests alongside Sherlock’s; Sherlock believes it means nothing at all. “That’s none of her business.”

“But her past is yours?”

John’s face is so close.

“Yes, because I would’ve liked to’ve known that she was a fucking assassin.”

Close enough to strike.

“You never killed outside the law for your own reasons? Never put yourself in situations you hoped would go wrong? Never went looking for a fix, addict?”

John’s pupils dilate.

Close enough to kiss.

Sherlock would.

Wants to.

But does John.

John leans back. Cups one hand under his chin and the other beneath his elbow.

“How can you defend her? You, Sherlock, of all people. Have you even read what’s on there?”

Sherlock wills himself to ignore his transport, his mounting pulse, his uncomfortable arousal. His bare foot finds John’s; John doesn’t pull away. Thinks it was an accident, maybe: not conclusive, and Sherlock cannot, will not theorise ahead of the evidence. “Of course I have.”

“Mmm. Then tell me, what does A.G.R.A. stand for?”

“Read it for yourself.” Sherlock waves one hand toward John’s armrest.

“No.” The chair squeaks again, and John’s _there_ , eyes dark. “You’re a show-off, you’re a drama queen, and you’re dying to tell me, so tell me: who is A.G.R.A.?”

Sherlock gestures to the desk behind him. “Your laptop’s right there.”

“Your mouth’s right here.” John’s thumb swipes, rough, across Sherlock’s lips. His wedding ring is warm on Sherlock’s cheek.

John’s touch: evidence.

Conclusive.

Everything—the skin beneath Sherlock’s clothes, the carpet beneath Sherlock’s feet, the air that Sherlock stupidly keeps sucking into his lungs—should, by rights, have turned to ash, and John looks vengeful, deadly, _should_ look conflicted, he abhors adultery, but….

Obvious: Mary doesn’t mind.

John wraps possessive hands around the back of Sherlock’s neck, pulls Sherlock forward until their foreheads rest together, and whispers, his breath hot on Sherlock’s skin, “Tell me your real name.”

 _Only if I’m dying,_ Sherlock thinks, but he nearly says it all the same.

“She told you that you could do this, and you pretended not to understand her.” Metal clinks against metal as Sherlock’s fingers find John’s belt buckle and unfasten it: something that John thought about months ago, often enough that Mary saw, told him _yes_ , told him _I don’t mind_. “Another lie.”

A twitch through John’s fingers: John wanted to hit him, just then.

“You’re the liar,” says John. “You won’t even tell me your name.”

Sherlock grazes his knuckles along John’s trapped erection, and John pushes into his touch. “You didn’t tell me yours.”

“I didn’t want you to know it.” John’s nails dig into the back of Sherlock’s neck.

“But I found it out.” Sherlock presses the heel of his hand against John’s flies. “Not much fun, is it? Being found out.”

John moves, and Sherlock lands on his back with a gasp. John straddles him, his knees pinning Sherlock’s open dressing gown to the carpet.

_Oh._

One by one, his movements at once methodical and crackling with anger, John unfastens Sherlock’s buttons.

Sherlock groans. Fears each button will be the last, that John will realise what he’s doing and leave because Sherlock is _not good_ and John is _not gay,_ but John doesn’t stop. Not at Sherlock’s wrists, not at Sherlock’s chest (he lingers there, mutters _goddammit_ against scar tissue), not at Sherlock’s waist.   

“When you found out what was on that memory stick,” John says, removing Sherlock’s clothes as Sherlock arches off the floor to help. “Was that fun?”

“I don’t know what you’re asking me.” Head pounding, heart pounding, Sherlock lifts his hands to John’s collar, but John grabs Sherlock’s wrists and pins them above his head.

“Liar.”

Sherlock bucks against John’s trousers, tries to say it with his body: _I know seventeen ways to break your hold and eleven to kill you before I walk away, but I never will, John, I’ll always want this your way. My way for everything else, but yours for this. Please._ “Why ask me, then? Mary gave you everything you want to know.”

“ _Liar._ ”

“Get your laptop,” Sherlock pants. “Look for yourself.”

John laughs low and grim. “Will looking tell me who I am?”

“John?”

John undoes his flies, shoves down his trousers and pants, and pushes at the insides of Sherlock’s knees. Sherlock spreads his legs, and John settles between them, his forearms on either side of Sherlock’s body, and ruts against Sherlock’s hip.

“I never thought,” John says, stopping every few words so they can kiss, hard, so John can drag Sherlock's lower lip between his teeth, “I never dreamed that the person I love—the _people_ I love, two of you, Jesus Christ—could be as cruel as you and Mary. I thought I was better than that.”

Sherlock moans, grabs at John’s back to pull him closer, feels John’s exit wound ragged beneath layers of fabric. “You are. You are better.”

“No, I’m not. I’m like you. Both of you.” The rhythm of John’s hips is relentless as he palms curls from Sherlock’s forehead. Sherlock is sweating; so is John, the firelight lining his face with shadow. “You lied, you broke my heart, you won’t even tell me your fucking names, and I’m _like_ you.” John’s voice breaks. “What could be on that stick, what could I possibly find there, that could hurt me more than that?”

They’re overwhelming, his transport’s urges to cry, or come, or come crying, but Sherlock gives in to none of them. “John, I...”

John's shirts are bunched around his ribcage. He shifts his weight, seeks a better angle: it's their first time, and there are—there are so many unknowns. “I’m never going to look.”

“You trust me.” Sherlock scratches the back of John’s neck and feels welts rise under his fingertips.

“Yes.”

If he let himself, Sherlock could come from that admission alone.

“Even though I’m a liar.”

“Yes.”

“Even about Mary.”

“ _Yes._ ”

John stills, silent as his cock throbs against Sherlock’s hip; Sherlock gasps as something low and deep inside him bears down, turns everything between his legs hot and tight and full and John’s come is hot and wet between their skins and John’s body is firm and heavy over his own and Sherlock can’t come, he can’t, not like this, and John understands, wraps a hand around his cock, strokes, says _now_ , says _for me_ , and _oh_.

Sherlock closes his eyes. When he opens them, there is only John’s hand on his hip, John’s scent in his lungs, John’s buttons digging into his bare skin.

Water sluices loud through the pipes beneath them: Mrs Hudson’s bath is over.

John helps Sherlock sit up. Pulls down the blanket from his chair and drapes it over Sherlock’s back, ignoring that the memory stick falls to the floor as he and Sherlock turn toward the fire.

Sherlock reaches out, his hands suddenly strange to him, and unbuttons John’s cardigan, then John’s shirt. He studies John’s scar as he slides the clothes from John’s shoulders.

John lets him.

Laying himself down ( _this happened_ ) and resting his head in John’s lap ( _this may never happen again_ ), Sherlock murmurs, “I do love you. Believe me. Please.”

“I do.” John’s fingers catch in Sherlock’s hair. “God help me, I do.”


End file.
